Pentagon Budget to Increase by 8%

Over the weekend we reported that the Pentagon was ordered to trim the budget by 10% (Berman Post: Pentagon Ordered to Cut Budget by 10%). It seems now that Fox News got their numbers crossed. The non-war-cost budget limit given to the Pentagon by Obama represents an increase of about 8% over last year. That number is the same as the Bush administration would have gone with. The 10% cut is from the requested budget of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This the cut was not really a cut at all. The budget limit when up, just not by as much as the Joint Chiefs of Staff wanted, but at the level the Bush administration would have chosen.

This does not mean that I do not think that there are some programs that should be cut from the budget. Cleaning up some of the waistful spending would get the Joint Chiefs of Staff closer to the resource level they want for the other programs they requested funding for.

More at http://hotair.com/archives/2009/02/02/obama-plans-8-increase-in-defense-budget and http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000003022493.